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Milton, John, 1608-74, English poet, b.London, one of the greatest poets of the English language.John Milton(1608--1674)was the greatest poet and pamphleteer in the mid-17 century England.He was born into a puritan family and was sent to study in Cambridge University where he took his B.A and M.A and acquired a good knowledge of Greek and Latin.While in Cambridge, he wrote The Cheerful Man and The Pensive Man which had shown his talent in poetry writing.Milton was a great stylist.He was famous for his grand style—Miltonic style which was the result of his life-long claical and biblical study.The blank verse which is used throughout the epic, characterized by its employment of long and involved sentences which run on many lines with a variety of pauses, achieving sometimes an oratorical and sometimes an elaborately logical effect.Milton was political in his life.In more than 20 yeas after 1640, as a puritan, he participated in the struggle against the despotism and the Church of England and wrote several pamphlets advocating the abortion of the episcopacy although his eyesight was failing.The Defence of the English People, in which he eulogized the English people for their courage in fighting for liberty and overthrowing a tyrant, was the last work he saw.From 1652 until his death he worked in total darkne.Without his sight, he redoubled his efforts to denounce the restored monarch.With arduous labor he finished Paradise Lost in which he gave vent to his indignation against Charles Ⅱ and expreed the humanist pursuit for happine, that is, the spirit of Renaiance, and Samson Agonistes which showed his personal feeling of his last years.th
Early Life and Works
The son of a wealthy scrivener, Milton was educated at St.Paul's School and Christ's College, Cambridge.While Milton was at Cambridge he wrote poetry in both Latin and English,including the ode “On the Morning of Christ's Nativity”(1629).Although the exact dates are unknown, “L'Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” were probably written not long after this.His
dislike of the increasing ritualism in the Church of England was the reason he later gave for not fulfilling his plans to become a minister.Resolved to be a poet, Milton retired to his father's estate at Horton after leaving Cambridge and devoted himself to his studies.There he wrote the masque Comus(1634)and “Lycidas”(1638), one of his greatest poems, an elegy on the death of his friend Edward King.Political and Moral Tracts
In 1638 Milton went to Italy, where he traveled, studied, and met many notable figures, including Galileo.Returning to England in 1639, he supported the Presbyterians in their attempt to reform the Church of England.His pamphlets, which attacked the episcopal form of church government, include Of Reformation in England(1641)and The Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelaty(1642).In 1643 Milton married Mary Powell, a young woman half his age, who left him the same year.Disillusioned by the failure of his marriage, he started work on four controversial
pamphlets(1643-45)upholding the morality of divorce for incompatibility.His Areopagitica(1644), one of the great arguments in favor of the freedom of the pre, grew out of his diatisfaction with the strict censorship of the pre exercised by Parliament.Milton gradually broke away from the Presbyterians, and in 1649 he wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, which supported the Independents who had imprisoned King Charles in the Puritan Revolution.In it he declared that subjects may depose and put to death an unworthy king.This pamphlet secured Milton a position in Oliver 's government as Latin secretary for foreign affairs, and he continued to defend Cromwell and the
Commonwealth government in his Eikonoklastes [the image breaker](1649)-an answer to Eikon Basilike-and in the Latin pamphlets First Defense of the English People(1651), Second Defense of the English People(1654), and Defense of Himself(1655).Later Life
In the midst of his heavy official busine and pamphleteering, Milton, whose sight had been weak from childhood, became totally blind.From then on, he had to carry on his work through secretaries, one of whom was Andrew.Mary Powell returned to Milton in 1645 but died in 1652 after she had borne him three daughters.He married Catharine
Woodcock in 1656, and she died two years later.She is the subject of one of his most famous sonnets, beginning, “Methought I saw my late espoused saint.” In 1663 he married Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.Milton supported the Commonwealth to the very end.After the Restoration(1660)he was forced into hiding for a time, and some of his books were burned.He was included in the general amnesty, however, and lived quietly thereafter.Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained
For many years Milton had planned to write an epic poem, and he probably started his work on Paradise Lost before the Restoration.The blank-verse poem in ten books appeared in 1667;a second edition, in which Milton reorganized the original ten books into twelve, appeared in 1674.It was greatly admired by Milton's contemporaries and has since then been considered the greatest epic poem in the English language.In telling the story of Satan's rebellion against God and the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Milton attempted to account for the evil in this world and, in his own words, to “justify the ways of God to man.”
Paradise Regained, a second blank-verse poem in four books, describes how Jesus, a greater individual than Adam, overcame the temptations of Satan.In both works, Milton's
characterizations of Satan, Adam, Eve, and Jesus are penetrating and moving.Indeed, his portrayal of Satan is so compelling that many 19th-century critics maintained that he rather than Adam was the hero of Paradise Lost.In these two great works Milton's language is
dignified and ornate, replete with biblical and claical allusions, allegorical representations, metaphors, puns, and rhetorical flourishes.Samson Agonistes, a poetic drama modeled on
claical Greek tragedy but with biblical subject matter, appeared together with Paradise Regained in 1671.Other Works
Milton's theology, although in the Protestant tradition, is extremely unorthodox and individual on many points;it is set forth in the Latin pamphlet De doctrina Christiana [on Christian doctrine].Unpublished during Milton's lifetime, this work was discovered and published in 1825.Milton also wrote 18 sonnets in English and 5 in Italian, which generally follow the Petrarchan style and are accepted as among the greatest ever written.Bibliography
See his complete works(ed.by F.A.Patterson, 20 vol., 1931-40);collections by F.A.Patterson(rev.ed.1933), D.Bush(1965), and J.T.Shawcro(1971);variorum commentary on the poems(M.Y.Hughes, general editor;Vol.I, 1970;Vol.II, in 3 parts, 1972);Yale edition of his prose works(Vol.I-VI, 1953-73);biographies by W.A.Raleigh(1900, repr.1967), J.H.Hanford(1949), W.R.Parker(2 vol., 1968, rev.ed.1996), E.Wagenknecht(1971), B.K.Lewalski(2001), and G.Campbell and T.N.Corns(2008);studies by M.Nicolson(1963), D.Bush(1964), E.M.W.Tillyard(3 studies: 1938, repr.1963;1951, repr.1960;and rev.ed.1965), D.Daiches(1957, repr.1966), J.M.Steadman(1967 and 1968), A.D.Ferry(1963 and 1969), J.T.Shawcro(1966, 1967, and 1970), F.Kermode(1960, repr.1971), C.A.Patrides(1971), J.D.Simmonds, ed.(1969 and 1971), and A.Beer(2008
(born Dec.9, 1608, London, Eng.— died Nov.8?, 1674, London?)English poet and pamphleteer.Milton attended the University of Cambridge(1625 – 32), where he wrote poems in Latin, Italian, and English;these include the companion poems “L'Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” both written c.1631.In 1632 – 39 he engaged in private study — writing the masque Comus(first performed 1634)and the elegy “Lycidas”(1638)— and toured Europe, spending most of his time in Italy.Concerned with the republican cause in England, he spent much of 1641 – 60 pamphleteering for civil and religious liberty and serving in 's government.His best-known prose is in the pamphlets Areopagitica, on freedom of the pre, and Of Education(both 1644).He also wrote tracts on divorce and against the monarchy and the Church of England.He lost his sight c.1651 and thereafter dictated his works.After thehe was arrested as a prominent defender of the Commonwealth but was soon released.Paradise Lost(1667, 1674), considered the greatest epic poem in English, uses blank verse and reworks Claical epic conventions to recount the Fall of Man;Milton's characterization of Satan has been widely admired.Paradise Regained(1671)is a shorter epic in which Christ overcomes Satan the tempter, and Samson Agonistes(1671)is a dramatic poem in which the Old Testament figure conquers self-pity and despair to become God's champion.History of Britain was incomplete when published in 1670, and an unfinished work on theology was discovered in 1823.Milton is generally considered the greatest English poet after
